Mumbai-based edtech startup GreyAtom has raised $1 Mn in a funding round led by early-stage fund Pravega Ventures. The startup will use the raised funds to develop its innovative AI-based learning solution Commit.Live.

GreyAtom further aims to utilise the raised funds in further strengthening its ecosystem of quality instructors, hiring partners and academia.

Launched in February 2017 by Shweta Doshi, Mitul Thakkar, and Mayuresh Shilotri, GreyAtom is an onsite school focused on providing industry-relevant programs on emerging technologies. Commit.Live is a cloud-based learning platform which not only helps students in getting deep qualitative insight into the learning progress but also makes learning meaningful and social at the same time.

As mentioned on the LinkedIn page of the startup, its learning program is developed by world-class academicians in collaboration with industry practitioners. Their Instructors and curriculum developers rank from the best institutes globally and in India. GreyAtom also provides LIVE streaming of all its programs.

The startup further adds on its website, “You progress through lessons only by writing code that meets requirements established by our curriculum. Every line of code you write is published to GitHub, thus adding to your Tech profile. No certificate or degree can prove you can code, but a great portfolio can!”

The GreyAtom is also helping the candidates in achieving their individual goals. There are one-on-one meetings with the Career Advisor, exposure to industry experts via in-class Speaker Series, workshops focused on resume writing, LinkedIn, salary negotiations, mock technical interviews with professional data scientists and more to get the personal goals of each candidate fulfilled.

One can utilise the platform to build a strong foundation in the Python language, the unix/linux command line, machine learning packages such as scikit.learn, collaborative coding under version control with git, working on remote cloud servers, distributed algorithm frameworks such as Hadoop/MapReduce, and more.

Within a year of launch, the startup claims to have on-boarded 35 companies to be industry partners, empanelled 41 Certified Instructors and processed over 450 students under various programmes.

Mitul believes that modern employers are interested whether a prospective hire will be able to solve its real-world problem and less concerned with pedigree. As a result, learning outcomes become more critical when teaching engineering disciplines.

“A mix of online-offline blended approach is the way forward. We have built a product Commit.Live where the students login to solve real-world problems based on real data provided by industry partners. Not just a single faculty but the whole ecosystem is harvested for the benefit of aspirants,” he added.

The online education market is expected to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021, a KPMG-Google report released in May 2017 said. Re-skilling and online certification courses currently account for a majority (38%) of the online higher education market, the report added.

The blend of online and offline education with an onsite program like GreyAtom is offering will certainly increase the bar of education in the skilling industry. With the raised funding, what new innovations will the startup has thought to bring on stage for the Indian edtech industry will be interesting to watch.